The disclosures herein relate generally to information handling systems and more particularly to a system and method for storing information in a disk drive.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
An information handling system typically includes one or more hard disk drives for storing information. The performance of a hard disk drive generally has a direct impact on the performance of an information handling system. Unfortunately, increasing the performance of a hard disk drive often involves increased costs.
Customers in various segments desire higher performance (in terms of lower latency) and/or increased reliability of their data but are unwilling to pay a significant premium for a hardware solution.
In addition, data reliability is needed in an information handling system. Data reliability can be achieved by storing copies of information onto multiple storage media such as multiple hard disk drives. The use of multiple storage media, however, generally increases the cost of the information handling system.
The lower latency aspects of higher performance are generally addressed by employing higher rotation rate disk drives. This results in increased power consumption, heat dissipation, and higher noise levels, and does not address reliability concerns.
Increasing the reliability of data is often addressed by means of a hardware or OS RAID 1 drive implementation or other mirroring technique. This requires multiple drives, and does not address needs for lower latency and reduced cost.
It would be desirable to be able to increase disk drive performance and/or data reliability without increasing the cost of an information handling system. Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for storing information in a disk drive.